With the rollout of the Canada Dental Care Plan (CDCP), Volunteer Dental Outreach (VDO) has announced changes for its Haliburton clinic effective Jan. 1, 2025.
The CDCP is a federally-delivered public plan designed to help ease financial barriers to accessing oral health care for up to nine million uninsured Canadian residents. They are assisting people with an adjusted family net income of less than $90,000 and no co-payments for those under $70,000.
The program has been accepting applications from seniors 65-plus, people with valid disability tax credit certificates, and children under 18-years-old. In 2025, all remaining eligible Canadian resident can apply.
The VDO board recently issued a media release saying that in response to the evolving landscape of dental care in Canada, they are adjusting their services to better meet community needs.
“With the federal government’s continuing rollout of the CDCP, many low-income residents in Haliburton County will now have wide access to affordable dental care, resulting in a decreased patient load at VDO.”
In the new year, VDO will no longer provide dental care through the Ontario Seniors Dental Care Program.
VDO president Bill Kerr said in an interview that people 65 and up represent about one-third of the work VDO does, so, “a third of everything is disappearing as of the beginning of January.”
He added, “our policy has always been we look after the dental needs of people in Haliburton County that have nowhere else to go, and we don’t want to be taking patients away from other practices that are operating, and the majority of the patients that qualify for VDO are now qualifying for the federal program.”
However, the board stressed that VDO will remain open to provide care to those County residents who do not qualify for the CDCP, and meet the VDOs qualifications. Basically, they look at household income, the number of people living off of that household income, then household expenses to make a decision.
The board said in light of the changes, they are also suspending the 2025 Lisa Kerr Memorial Golf Tournament fundraising event. The board said it would assess community needs before making further decisions.
They don’t know what impact rolling out the federal program to all age groups will mean next year. Kerr said the original plan by the end of 2025 was to have everybody covered.
Kerr said that, overall, what is happening is good news. “
I thoroughly enjoy doing dentistry for free for people that can’t afford it. But if there are other opportunities, I’m quite comfortable doing other things, it’s not something I need to do. If they roll out the way they say they’re going to roll it out, we anticipate the amount of appointment time, the amount of patient time, to continue to reduce.”
However, it’s still a wait-and-see for VDO as a Liberal federal election defeat could change the playing field once again.
In the meantime, they have taught people about how to qualify for CDCP and to apply for it.
He also thinks his late wife, Lisa Kerr, would be pleased with the direction dental care is going.
“Lisa is going to love that there is access to care because she was the one that would drive to someone’s house and pick them up if they didn’t have a ride. She was all about looking after people. It was all of our dreams that one day the government would step up and look after the people that needed it the most.”
